—Mr. Elijah Hise of Kentucky declared that, "under such a system as this bill proposes, the writ of habeas corpus cannot exist, because even if the civil tribunals are not entirely abolished, they will exist only at the will of the military tyrant in command."
—Mr. Davis of New York spoke of the danger of suddenly enfranchising the whole body of rebels. "The State of Kentucky," he said, "has enfranchised every rebel who has been in the service of the Confederate States. What to-day is the condition of affairs in that State? Why, sir, her political power is wielded by rebel hands. Rebel generals, wearing the insignia of the rebel service, walk the streets of her cities, admired and courted; while the Union officers with their wounds yet unhealed, are ostracized in political, commercial and social life."
—Mr. Niblack of Indiana, one of the leading Democrats of the House, thought the bill had been much improved by the action of the Senate. "Though," said he, "it still retains many of the first features to which I objected when it was before the House for discussion, it is not now properly a military bill, nor is it properly a measure of civil administration. It is a most extraordinary attempt to blend the two principles together."
When a vote was reached, the House rejected the Senate amendment—ayes 73, noes 98. This result was effected by a coalition of all the Democrats with a minority of extreme Republicans. But thirteen days of the session remained, and it looked as if by a disagreement of Republicans all legislation on the subject of Reconstruction would be defeated. Under the pressure of this fear Republican differences were adjusted, and the Senate and the House found common ground to stand upon by adding two amendments to the bill as the Senate had framed it. It was agreed, on motion of Mr. Wilson of Iowa, to add a proviso to the fifth section, in these words: "that no person excluded from the privilege of holding office by said proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, shall be eligible as a member of a convention to frame a constitution for any of said rebellious States, nor shall any such person vote for members of such convention." It was also agreed, on motion of Mr. Shellabarger, that "until the people of said rebel States shall be admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States, any civil governments which may exist therein shall be deemed provisional only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede. . . . All persons shall be entitled to vote, and none others, who are entitled to vote under the fifth section of this act; and no person shall be eligible to any office under such provisional government, who shall be disqualified from holding office under the provisions of the Third Article of such Constitutional amendment." With these modifications both Senate and House passed the bill by a party vote. During the discussion in the Senate Mr. Doolittle moved that "nothing in this act shall be construed to disfranchise any persons in any of said States from voting or holding office who have received pardon and amnesty in accordance with the Constitution and Laws." The proposition received but eight votes. The bill went to the President for approval on the 20th of February, leaving but a small margin of time for passage over his veto if as anticipated he should decline to sign it. The decisive character of the measure had evoked fierce opposition, and this in turn had stimulated Republican advocacy to a degree of great earnestness.
On the 2d of March the President sent to the House, in which branch the bill had originated, a long veto message of very comprehensive character. He had summed up all the arguments that had been made against the measure in both Houses, and he arrayed them with greater strength than when they were originally presented. His argument against placing the States under military government was cogently stated. "This bill," said he, "imposes martial law at once, and its operation will begin as soon as the general and his troops can be put in place. The dread alternative between its harsh rule and compliance with the terms of this measure is not suspended, nor are the people afforded any time for free deliberation. The bill says to them, 'Take martial law first, and then deliberate.' And when they have done all that this measure requires them to do, other conditions and contingencies, over which they have no control, yet remain to be fulfilled before they can be relieved from martial law. Another Congress must approve the constitutions made in conformity with the law of this Congress, and must declare these States entitled to representation in both branches. The whole question thus remains open and unsettled, and must again occupy the attention of Congress; and in the mean time the agitation which now prevails will continue to disturb all portions of the people."
The President's veto reached the House on the afternoon of Saturday. On Monday, March 4th, at noon, Congress would expire by Constitutional limitation. The President had communicated his veto on the last day permitted by the Constitution, and it was generally believed that his motive for the postponement was to give the minority in one branch or the other the power to defeat the bill either by dilatory motions or by "talking against time." Mr. Le Blond and Mr. Finck or Ohio, and Mr. Boyer of Pennsylvania, frankly indicated their intention to employ all means within their power to compass this end. A system of parliamentary delay was thus foreshadowed, but was prevented by Mr. Blaine moving that the rules be suspended and a vote immediately taken on the question required by the Constitution; namely, "Will the House, on reconsideration, agree to the passage of the bill, the President's objection to the contrary notwithstanding?" The Speaker decided that the motion in this form cut off all dilatory proceedings. Mr. Finck appealed from the decision of the Chair, but only four members sustained him. The rules were suspended, and the House, by a vote of one hundred and thirty-five ayes to forty-eight noes, passed the bill over the veto of the President. The Senate concurred in the action of the House by ayes thirty-eight, noes ten; and the famous Reconstruction law, from which flowed consequences of great magnitude, was thus finally enacted against every effort of the Executive Department of the Government.(1)
The successive steps of this legislation have been given somewhat in detail because of its transcendent importance and its unprecedented character. It was the most vigorous and determined action ever taken by Congress in time of peace. The effect produced by the measure was far-reaching and radical. It changed the political history of the United States. But it is well to remember that it never could have been accomplished except for the conduct of the Southern leaders. The people of the States affected have always preferred as their chief grievance against the Republican party, that negro suffrage was imposed upon them as a condition of their re-admission to representation; but his recital of the facts in their proper sequence shows that the South deliberately and wittingly brought it upon themselves. The Southern people knew, as well as the members of Congress knew, that the Northern people during the late political canvass were divided in their opinion in regard to the requirements of reconstruction, but that the strong preponderance was in favor of exacting only the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment as the condition of representation in Congress. It was equally plain to all who cared to investigate, or even to inquire, that if that condition should be defiantly rejected, the more radical requirements would necessarily be exacted as a last resort,—rendered absolutely necessary indeed by the truculence of the Southern States.
The arguments that persuaded the Northern States of the necessity of this step were simple and direct. "We are willing," said they, "that the Southern States shall themselves come gradually to recognize the necessity and the expediency of admitting the negro to suffrage; we are content, for the present, to invest him with all the rights of citizenship, and to except him from the basis of representation, allowing the South to choose whether he shall remain, at the expense of their decrease in representation, outside the basis of enumeration." It was the belief of the North that as the passions of the civil contest should die out, the Southern States, if not inspired by a sense of abstract justice, would be induced by the highest considerations of self-interest to enfranchise the negro, and thus increase their power in Congress by thirty-five to forty members of the House. It was the belief that when they should come to realize that the negro had brought to them this increased power and prestige in the National councils, they would treat him with justice and with fairness. It was, therefore, not merely with surprise, but with profound regret, and even with mortification, that the North found the South in an utterly impracticable frame of mind. They would do nothing: they would listen to nothing. They had been inspired by the President with the same unreasoning tenacity and stubbornness that distinguished his own official conduct. They believed that, even against the popular verdict in the North, the President would in the end prevail. They had unbounded faith in the power of patronage, and they constantly exhorted the President to turn every opponent of his policy out of office, and give only to his friends the honors and emoluments of the National Government. They had full faith that this would carry consternation to the Republican ranks, and would establish the President's power on a firm foundation.
Unless, therefore, the Loyal States were willing to allow the Rebel States to come back on their own terms, in a spirit of dictation to the Government of the Union, they were under the imperious necessity of providing some other basis of reconstruction than the one which the South had unitedly rejected. Congress was charged, in the name of loyalty, to see that no harm should come to the Republic, and the point was now reached where three ways were open: first, Congress might follow the Administration, and allow the States to come in at once without promise, without condition, without guarantee of any kind; second, it might adopt the plan of Mr. Stevens, which had just been narrowly defeated, and place the Southern States under military government, with no date assigned for its termination by National authority, and no condition held out by which the South itself could escape from it; third, it might place the Southern States temporarily under a military government, for the sake of preserving law and order and the rights of property, during the prescribed period of reconstruction—upon the basis that all loyal men, regardless of color or previous condition of servitude, should take part in the movement.
Reduced to the choice of these three methods, the considerate, well-pondered, conclusive judgment of the Republican party was in favor of the last named, and the last named was adopted. If, therefore, suffrage was prematurely granted to the negro; if, in consequence, harm came to the Southern States; if hardship was inflicted upon Southern people, the responsibility for it cannot be justly laid upon Northern sentiment or upon the Republican party. It is true, and was not denied, that the vast mass of the negroes thus admitted to suffrage were without property and without education, and that it might have been advantageous, if just treatment could have been assured them, that they should tarry for a season in a preparatory state. While it was maintained as an abstract proposition that the right of the negro to vote was well grounded, many thought it desirable, as Mr. Lincoln suggested, that at first only those who were educated and those who had served in the Union Army should be enfranchised. But the North believed, and believed wisely, that a poor man, an ignorant man, and a black man, who was thoroughly loyal, was a safer and a better voter than a rich man, an educated man, and a white man, who, in his heart, was disloyal to the Union. This sentiment prevailed, not without hesitation, not without deep and anxious deliberation; but in the end it prevailed with the same courage and with the same determination with which the party had drawn the sword and fought through a long war in aid of the same cause, for which the negro was now admitted to suffrage.